


Running in the Woods

by Hathanta



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drabble, Gen, MWPP Era, Marauders' Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-13
Updated: 2013-01-13
Packaged: 2017-11-25 08:41:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/637090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hathanta/pseuds/Hathanta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Complete drabble<br/>Wormtail can't always keep up with the others and so he has to ride on someone's back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Running in the Woods

The four of them would often run through the woods – running just for the hell of it, running just for the sheer ecstatic bubbling joy that comes with a good sprint. The two dogs would be flat out swerving and racing around the trees, stopping to jump each other and tussle and then powering off with their paws throwing up clots of earth. The stag would be bounding close behind them, leaping and springing, and dancing around the rolling canines. For these runs the rat would often perch in the stag’s antlers, paws clinging onto a thick trunk of bone and tail curled around it, bouncing along with the big animal. But one night the shaggy dog leapt on the rat with a mischievous glint in his eye, scooped it up and dropped the rodent on the broad back of the wolf.   
Sometimes, Peter thought, Sirius forgot that Remus didn't retain his human thoughts the way they did. Sometimes, Peter thought, Sirius didn't quite retain his own human thoughts either.   
However the rat was pack, and so the wolf let the little body squirm its way up between his shoulder blades and take root in his coat like an over-grown flea. He shook his fur experimentally and then bounded forward, stopped, snuffed the air, and started off into the night at a steady lope.   
Wormtail gripped the fur determinedly with his belly flat to Moony’s back, eyes just peering over the wolf’s head. Riding like this gave him a whole new perspective, as the dogs rushed through the undergrowth and plunged into dark thickets. His sharp ears picked up the thudding of Prongs’ hooves somewhere beside them, and the almost imperceptible snuffing of the wolf as he read the air.  
Really the rat was beginning to enjoy himself, and bravely began to he pull himself up Moony’s skull to get a better seat. As he tugged himself along his thin ticklish whiskers brushed the wolf’s ear and Peter was thrown sideways as Moony suddenly shook his head wildly. The small animal hit the ground with a thump and the breath rushed out of him. He felt more than saw Sirius scamper over, immediately guarding the defenseless rodent, but he was in no danger. The wolf simply scratched his ear, with a jerking back leg and then came over to huff at the rat.   
Twisting over, Wormtail sat up on his back feet as the wolf cocked his head to survey him. Then the great canine ducked his head, laying his throat to the ground and apparently offering the rat access to his back again.   
Peter was stunned and then grinned to himself in a rattish way, and Wormtail scuttled up onto the wolf’s back.


End file.
